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Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

eugeneyan.com

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Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#111

Post by rideontime »

xivzgrev wrote: post #82

Marketer here. I’ll add how my company does it (10m+ list size) 1) we limit promotional notifications to one per user per day. All campaigns that target a given user are ranked based on expected monetization or engagement. This involves a large batch scoring job that runs overnight 2) we also limit promotional messages to one every x days, where x is personalized to the user. The more you open/click, the more you get…

One promotional notification per day is one too many. The only people leaving notifications enabled on your app are those who don’t know how to disable them.

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#112

Post by braiamp »

londons_explore wrote: post #31

I'd much rather the OS have a "report spam" button on notifications, and if more than 5% of app users report spam then the whole app gets all notifications blocked by default. Both Apple and Google have strong controls on the apps identity, so it won't be like email spam where the sender can just send from a new email address to get around the filter.

A better solution would be that the OS forces app developers to separate in categories their push notifications and have in the notifications options which of those notifications would be enabled or not, how often and how frequent before a notification is presented. This would then be gathered by the OS as how many notifications were silenced and how often were they acted upon, then force that as default to all notifications. More importantly, there must not be a "important" flag or something that hints hierarchy. If a notification is important, describe that in the category description.

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#113

Post by JohnFen »

Irishsteve wrote: post #58
JoshTriplett wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a user specifically uses a feature that asks for notifications about a product, then you're just doing what the user asked you to do. The problem comes in when sending such notifications without them being requested by the user, which includes if the user "favorited" a product but that "favorite" operation had nothing to do with requesting promotions of that product. ("This is a thing I like" is not an invitation…

I'd say its a grey area in our case. The user isn't using a "tell me when discounts happen" feature, but rather a favourites feature where some of our marketing said to favourite things to get a discount. Another instance but via notification was that someone would lose their product if they didn't complete the transaction (24 hours notice). This wasn't a lie - we reserved inventory for 24 hours for a buyer as it was…

> The user isn't using a "tell me when discounts happen" feature

Then that's a plain abuse of push notifications, in my view. If the user didn't ask for marketing messages, they shouldn't be pushed.

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#114

Post by JoshTriplett »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #67
sakjur wrote: post #30

Something I wish Apple and Google would support is notifications that are only delivered if you’ve opened the app during the last 2 hours. Taxi and food delivery services for example have a reasonable usecase for push notifications, but only around the time when I’ve opened the apps. I think adding such dials to the operating system could help align the user interest of not being spammed with the engagement metrics u…

I delete DoorDash after every usage because they're excessive with the push notifications. I want notifications during order/delivery. I don't want the push notifications any time after that.

I use the websites for GrubHub and DoorDash, on both laptops and mobile devices. Both have reasonable mobile sites, other than the regular exhortations to use the app instead.

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#115

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #51
londons_explore wrote: post #31

I'd much rather the OS have a "report spam" button on notifications, and if more than 5% of app users report spam then the whole app gets all notifications blocked by default. Both Apple and Google have strong controls on the apps identity, so it won't be like email spam where the sender can just send from a new email address to get around the filter.

Both operating systems already require opt in (at the system level) for applications to be able to send notifications. I think Android enforces this even for apps targeting older API levels, except you just get prompted for the permission when you open the app.

Lyft sends me junk notifications even when I have not launched the app in months. Yet when I do request a ride, I absolutely want to be notified of any status updates.

The blanket allow permission is being abused.

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#116

Post by tyfon »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #115
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both operating systems already require opt in (at the system level) for applications to be able to send notifications. I think Android enforces this even for apps targeting older API levels, except you just get prompted for the permission when you open the app.

Lyft sends me junk notifications even when I have not launched the app in months. Yet when I do request a ride, I absolutely want to be notified of any status updates. The blanket allow permission is being abused.

Doesn't most apps use different notification channels now a days?

I'm not sure how it is on iphone, but on most apps on android I can mute some types of notifications while letting others through. The OS will also revoke all permissions after the app has not been used for a month or so.

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#117

Post by grishka »

> Push notifications can be considered a form of recommender system

No. Push notifications are notifications. They have to notify you about something that has happened that concerns you, personally. Like if someone sent you a message, or commented on your post, or liked your content. A sale in a store, or an app update being available, or it being a certain time of day, does not, ever, under any circumstances, qualify as a reason to send a push notification. No matter how cringe-cutesy it is and how many emojis it contains.

Bulk push notifications in any shape or form Just. Should. Not. Be. A. Thing. Period.

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#118

Post by gruez »

ranting-moth wrote: post #54

I might be in the minority group. But any app that sends me a push notification that I haven't specifically opted in for is going to have all notification privilege removed right away. A lot of the time it's actually a reminder for me to uninstall the app.

>But any app that sends me a push notification that I haven't specifically opted in for is going to have all notification privilege removed right away.

I thought both android and ios has opt-in notifications? In other words if you're receiving a notification, you already explicitly opted into them at some point.

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#119

Post by onyxringer »

malfist wrote: post #101
cypressious wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android forces app developers to categorize notifications (the API is called notification channels). Each channel can be muted individually in the system settings. Though it's up to the app makers to correctly categorize their notifications, in my experience most apps do this. Whenever I see a spam notification, I immediatelly go mute the channel and the problem never repeats itself.

The problem is still bad actors. Take for example audible. They deliberately put everything into a single category "Member notifications" If you want to know when your audiobook is downloaded or when you get a your next credit is available, you also have to put up with promotional "X book is 40% off" garbage spam.

[dead]

Re: Push notifications – What to push, what not to push, and how often

#120

Post by grishka »

twism wrote: post #85
sakjur wrote: post #30

Something I wish Apple and Google would support is notifications that are only delivered if you’ve opened the app during the last 2 hours. Taxi and food delivery services for example have a reasonable usecase for push notifications, but only around the time when I’ve opened the apps. I think adding such dials to the operating system could help align the user interest of not being spammed with the engagement metrics u…

Android has notifications channels ... mute the spam/ad ones. I only have the payment and delivery status channels on alert, the others are not muted but "silent" (i.e. the show up in the notification tray but doesn't alert me). you do get some deals sometimes. Android gets a lot of shit for a lot of things but the notification is top-notch ... on iOS it seems like an afterthought (e.g. how long it took for iOS to ge…

> mute the spam/ad ones

Some apps think their stupid spam is important enough to have a single notification channel for both the spam and actually important stuff like order status.

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